Superman Returns

The current Superman is a good one and Christopher Reeve is a legend, of course. For Superboys the ones on Smallville and Superboy hold their own and, if you always thought the Man of Steel should resemble a linebacker, Lois and Clark was enjoyable -- and made Teri Hatcher a star the first time.

Today though we watched Superman as he was meant to be, as he should be: A grown up surrounded by grown ups, powerful but not almighty, smart but not brilliant, an action hero, not a messiah. Today we watched the first season of the epoch making, legendary 1952 Adventures of Superman -- currently on sale at WalMart for $14.95.

I'm not even going to mention the special effects (other than to say the flying scene with him streaking through the clouds at 30,000 feet was sufficient years ago to make me believe a man could fly) because in the post-Star Wars, post-Matrix 21st century that's everybody's reference point. What I am mentioning is that each episode launches the moment the intro finishes into a whirling slam-bang 1950's adventure film crammed into a half hour that happens to feature the strange visitor from another planet.

This Superman doesn't have time for rich, bald, half-insane, super-geniuses; he's too busy busting the heads of thugs, spies, and murders together. And Lois Lane is tough as nails, especially for those days. The only reason she ever needs to be saved is because she's always the first one to the danger zone.

Everyday after kindergarten and first grade I'd put my red and blue Sears Halloween costume on and sit entranced before this version of the Man of Steel. Sometimes I'd wear it to school under my clothes -- cape included -- just to see what Clark Kent had to go through.

Happy Moon Day

This may well be the anniversary of the most epoch-making event in history not commemerated by an official holiday. Well, this and D-Day perhaps. This is 'Moon Day' -- the point in history when 2 human beings, backed by thousands of others, along with the will of a nation, walked on the moon.

Up until July 20, 1969 literature was filled with books imagining how we might get to the moon and what it would be like to once we did. This type of science fiction began in Greece and Rome, and we have evidence people were pondering the "smaller light to rule the night" well before that.

But on that one glorious pinacle of history, broadcast to humanity by a rudimentary black and white camera, this immemorial fantasy finally became a reality.

And then we promptly lost all interest.

The 'H' Word

Are there any more Hitlers? No, I don't mean the leader of Hezzbolah, I mean people actually named "Hitler."

The megomaniacal little fellow most associated with that name certainly gave it a bad rap, but he did, after all, come from a family. There must be some relatives around today. Did they keep that name? Did they change it legally en masse? Are there people who hold their heads high and proudly carry the Hitler name?

And don't fall for that Schicklegruber story; Hitler was der Fuhrer's real last name.

Come to think of it though, are there any Schicklegrubers around anymore?

Brain Droppings

When you want to remember something, you don't have to leaf through pages or click the right icon. You just think of it and it's there (or else there's nothing there).

How do they do that?

Back From the Sky

The Shuttle Discovery blasts into space, stays there 13 days, docks up to the Space Station, engages in 3 space walks, and swoops into a flawless landing at Cape Canaveral -- all without so much as a scratch.

That's so uneventful, it's an event!

Nuclear Fascination

Last night, while exploring YouTube for one of the first times, I started watching A-Bomb explosions. Not that I have any great love for wanton cataclysmic destruction, but for some reason they are just so darn fascinating. I could watch these official 1950's military B-movies for hours.

Come to think of it, 1950's B-movies in general are fascinating to me as well. Strategic Air Command, Bombers B-52, When Worlds Collide -- they're all in my top 100 most enjoyable films list. And they're not all about facing down the Communist threat; in the last one I listed, a planet is after us, something so 21st century that I understand Steven Spielberg is making a new version of it. Plus I'm big on the social commentary Science Fiction dramas, such as The Day the Earth Stood Still. A true classic.

I was happy to see that I'm apparently not the only person with the mindset necessary to watch things be annihilated for hours; there are dozens of these things! A-bombs, H-bombs, in the desert, over water, in the air, underground, they're all there for our viewing enjoyment at any hour of the day or night.

One popular idea is to set nuclear detonations to music, something pioneered by the great Stanley Kubrick. Heavy metal seems popular, but classical and (counterintuitively and, one would think, ironically) relaxing new age tunes provide a peaceful backdrop for watching mushroom clouds wafting to the skies. Here's one of my favorites.

I'm not planning to psychoanalyze myself at this time. Just observing my own peculiarities, that's all.

Blog Evolution

This blog is my latest manifestation on the Web but there's been a long succession all the way back to 2001 when I became aware of blogs. Before that I still had the urge to post things, but had to do it the old fashioned way: Having a website hosted somewhere and updating it with WS_FTP.

The first was a now-defunct christian site called Followers.org that I began in 1997. It didn't come to much though, and I somewhat inadvertently let that domain lapse. After that came a few other sites and then numerous blogs, which I first learned about reading an article in the also-now-defunct Brill's Content while waiting for an eye examination in April 2001. Fiddling with HTML and Cascading Style Sheets is fun (really!), but actually I just wanted a way to put stuff on the Internet. Blogging's fantastic push-button world of the future made that a lot easier. And I can still fiddle.

My latest blog before this one was a daily journal called Candid Spirit which after 2 1/2 years I decided to delete, but the one before that, called Dysphemistic, is still around in hibernation. I was originally going to renovate and restart Dysphemistic, but as I read back through its 54 posts I ultimately decided to start yet another blog. It just became obvious that my outlook on life had changed and I wanted a fresh start.

In particular, I wanted a blog that wasn't as gimmicky as most of my other ones. This one is just what it says: A few paragraphs. In fact I was kind of surprised to find nobody had taken that title; almost all the other ones I've thought of lately have been. AFP (as I like to call it) was so obvious.

I also wanted a blog that breaks the cardinal rule for blog success, i.e., focus on your niche. The truth is, I'm interested in everything, so that's what this blog will be about, from world events to what my cat's doing. My cat has her own blog by the way, featuring important updates.

This is my electronic Commonplace Book, the place where I store whatever strikes me. Come look over my shoulder if you wish.

The 4th

A late report on our 4th of July activities: We were unsure whether we wanted to possibly watch fireworks and music in the rain, which was said to be coming, but decided to chance it. As it turned out, that was the right decision.

We headed out through some exorbitant, immobile traffic after noon, and eventually exited the freeway (which served us well in all our other vacation escapades but not this time) to take surface streets. On our way, we ate tuna sandwiches. The strategy was to park cheaply and conveniently in the parking garage (we're Conglomeration Museum of Natural History members so we get a discount), tour some new exhibits, see an IMAX movie, eat a quasi-dinner, then trek up to the top of "Hippy Hill" to watch the patriotic concert and fireworks. Now I've spoiled everything; that's what we did.

We've already seen BodyWorlds 3, which was fantastic, so this time we headed first for the Treasures of Ur exhibit. This was fantastic as well because I've seen so many of these artifacts in archeology books and now -- there they were! Ur, of course, was an important Sumerian city. One of the first great modern archaeologists, a gentleman named Woolley, excavated it in the 1920's, bringing up eye-popping royal treasures.

Ur was located on the 3rd floor where we usually have our Inca and Mayan exhibits. There was a brief movie to orient you and then I was actually walking beside Queen Puabi's delicate headdress and the Ram Caught in a Thicket sculpture (which isn't thought to be connected with the Abraham/Isaac story anymore). The Ram was much smaller than I thought -- maybe a foot and a half.

After that there was a new dinosaur exhibit we wanted to see as well, but it turned out we were deluded and it actually cost extra. We had purchased IMAX tickets to Mystery of the Nile though, and had about an hour before that came on at 5:00, so we wandered downstairs to the "hands-on" science. The Son and Daughter ran around maniacally while Wife and I went through a King Tut exhibit backwards and took pictures of this mummified cat. Then I found a cushy couch and rested my feet.

The IMAX film, it turned out, concerned an expedition that spent 4 months becoming the first ever to navigate the entire Blue Nile -- the source of most of the Nile's water. They were almost killed several times in various ways, and the photography was breathtaking, so it was an exciting movie.

It was now 6:00 and the museum exhibits were closing. We wiled away some more time at the gift shop, but except for the daughter -- who loves high priced rock candy -- we didn't buy anything. With their posh, artsy gift shop at the other end of the hall and a third dedicated to BodyWorlds 3, the regular giftshop caters more to toys and kids books these days.

Finally we left close to 7:00 for our car so we could eat quasi-dinner. This consisted of meat, cheese, snack mix, tropical fruit drink, and candy -- ad hoc, but it filled one up. Now it was up the hill.

We're old hands at climbing the hill. Wife took a camera and her backpack/purse, Son and Daughter took their patriotic Texas folding chairs, and I took the cracked, cheapo digital camera and chairs for Wife and myself. And a bottle of flavored water for each. Cresting the hill we could see there was still plenty of space this early in the evening, so we unlimbered a choice spot.

Interesting aromas wafted by. Babies screeched and cooed. A chihuahua puppy wrestled happily with two larger dogs as their human did her best to control them. We moved our chairs from the choice spot to a choicer one when 3 women with larger folding chairs than ours chose the choice spot in front of us, blocking the Children's view. The Children decided to buy funnel cakes, and I went along in hopes of getting a piece. I did, as did Wife -- A small one.

At 8:30 the Conglomeration Symphony Orchestra took the stage of Miller Outdoor Theater (at the bottom of Hippy Hill) and began churning out patriotic tunes. Will Makar, one of the American Idol top 8 and a local boy, showed up after a very long intermission and performed God Bless the USA -- the second national anthem -- and 2 other songs, getting a rousing standing ovation. Then they finished it off with the traditional 1812 overture, not missing the requisite cannons blasting back and forth over our heads.

In the past our fireworks at the park have left quite a lot to be desired, not the least being a discernible beginning, middle, and end. But this year it was over the top with beautiful, choreographed explosions sychronized to music. The rain never came, and when the last airborne charge had detonated we came away really and truly feeling this was the best concert and fireworks we've enjoyed in years. Even the one in 2002, after... you know.

Beachcombing

For today's activity we drove 2 hours down Highway 288 and spent the afternoon on Quintana Island. This is a bit of land separated by a ship channel from the city of Freeport, and is something of a poor man's Galveston. In fact, on the map Quintana is almost a continuation of Galveston, but it's culture and infrastructure are much more run down and primitive. The oil industry surrounds you right up to the beach. Toward the end of our visit we watched the mighty CV Stealth oil tanker lumber by us and proceed out to sea. On the horizon were two or three oil platforms.

The beach and county park are rather nice, though. Padre Island is still my favorite, but Quintana was quiet, undeveloped, and fairly empty. There's a fishing pier down the beach to your right and one of the jetties that make up the ship channel far down on your left. Far, but I walked to both while we were there.

The water was roiled and opaque, probably due to the storms that paraded through today. But it wasn't stinky and sticky like Galveston's. Instead it smelled of fish and salt, the way it's supposed to. The main difference with Padre Island was the way this beach was choked with seaweed. Tons and tons of it. If anything makes Padre smell a bit sweeter by comparison, it was the smell emanating from this seaweed.

The son and daughter were inseparable, digging in the sand, walking to the pier, and wading out into the surf, which promptly smacked them both down and drenched them solidly. They really had a wonderful time. My wife and I walked around the beach for a while, then retreated to one of those thatched roof picnic tables they have on gulf beaches. She retrieved the cooler, but by now had only Kool-Aid in it; the sandwiches she'd made for us were long gone.

The park office had red and blue flags up: Blue for nasty animals like jellyfish, and red for dangerous sea conditions including rip-tides. The Son and Daughter are smart, creative, independent, spirited, but when it comes to good judgment...

They were walking on the beach when I came back from the jetty and were already soaked and sandy. By the time I made it back to the tropical picnic table, Son and Daughter were back in the surf. I'd told them all about the red flag already, so I sat there watching them. Wading deeper. "Surely," I said to myself, "surely they won't just keep going."

Finally, when they were up to their shoulders in the boiling surf I figured I'd better go and remind them what the red flag meant again. It would have been awkward explaining to the police why I let my kids go play in plainly marked rip-tides with no supervision. The Daughter saw me wading out in my tennis shoes and blue jeans and headed for shore. My intense Son took a bit longer but finally noticed me too. They stayed much closer to the shore after that, and eventually returned to land so they could walk to the pier.

By the time 6:00 rolled around, we were starving. It would be 2 hours back to Conglomeration and who knew how long after that to fix dinner, something we were all too tired to do once we got home anyway. So the Wife walked to the pier to retrieve our wandering children while I put our paraphernalia away in the van.

Before we left, Son and I took a trip to a gun emplacement from World War II. It was a genuine Howitzer from 1945 on a carriage from '42 according to labels on them. Just one. I don't know if that's all we had to protect this particular part of the Texas coast, but when you stand there looking out over the beach it seems exceedingly small.

That's what a I love about going to the ocean, particularly empty, non-built up beaches: It makes you realize you're small. It's gargantuan and could easily swollow me up. The city doesn't do that for me, and while prairie and farmland are comfortable, they don't either. Mountains and deserts come closest, but standing all alone next to the ocean tells me something about what I really am.

San Jacinto

With a couple of days off we decided to try and make it to the destination we were thwarted in visiting two years ago: San Jacinto Battlefield and the Battleship Texas. In 2004 a really nasty, blinding, typhoon-like storm jumped us and finally turned us back. This time its lesser cousin tried the same thing, especially as we headed down through the middle of Houston. This kind of thing almost made us wonder if perhaps we're not meant to visit this particular tourist attraction, but we rejected that as mere superstition and pressed on.

Along the way we ate parts of our lunch. I'd bought 24 tamales from the sister or sister-in-law of one of our managers at work, and we'd eaten those for lunch, along with my son's marvelous double chocolate cookies and a jug of Jamaica Kool-aid.

Eventually we arrived and found that the San Jacinto Monument -- the tallest memorial edifice in the world -- had been closed for a year to bring it up to code and just opened this very day! I don't recall seeing that in the news at all, but it contradicts the storm's idea that we shouldn't be there. Not all of it is open yet unfortunately, the most disappointing being a way to get to the tippy-top of the monument. What a view that must be.

But the museum at the base has a fascinating collection of first-hand memorabilia from Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin, and the like. From the Spanish era they even have a sword discovered in Kansas and dating from the time Coronado came through. It's one of the few pieces of evidence we have for what his route may have been, and it's here at San Jacinto. Very impressive! My daughter took videos until she got bored with it.

Very few people were there, which was surprising to me. I thought with the low entry price ($1 per person, and kids 12 and under are free), significance to Texans, and holiday weekend the monument would be pretty busy. Maybe the rain drove them all away -- although my daughter saw one of her school friends there among the tiny knots of visitors.

In a totally empty area of the monument parking lot we found a time capsule, filled with documents and messages by the people of 1960 -- from Ike on down. It's due to be opened in 2036, 200 years after the Battle of San Jacinto and in 1960 there was no doubt an impressive ceremony when they placed it there. But at the present moment, it looks like nothing more impressive than an obscure inscribed stone, tucked away and overgrown with grass.

In fact, the whole area looks as though it hasn't been cared for in a while, but signs assure you it's supposed to be this way. They're trying to get the flora and fauna back to what it was in 1836. The huge reflecting pool, which had nothing but a drizzly, grey sky to reflect, looks particularly overgrown, and is filled with highly aggressive mosquito's. I wore long pants but my poor son didn't and was thoroughly chewed up.

The dark blue Battleship Texas, the world's last surviving dreadnought class ship and a participant in both World Wars (including such epoch making events as D-Day and Iwo Jima) was just as fascinating. You pay your $9 and are free to wander the entire mostly restored ship. The looks, smells, and accoutrements are completely authentic, particularly the engine room which is three or four narrow, darkened stairwells down in the deepest bowels of the ship.

People were killed on this ship, as signs remind you, including one episode where a German shell smashed into the bridge and exploded. The radar antennas are still rotating, the deck guns swivel just like the old days, and the whole place smells like diesel in varying degrees. If you have a group of some kind they'll actually let you sleep on board, though it's quite stuffy so I think I'll wait till winter to make my reservation. It would be interesting to ride out a hurricane on the Texas though!

Coming down the gangplank we found ourselves in the site where Texans camped during the battle with Generalissimo Santa Ana, and began exploring that. Unfortunately two misfortunes happened about that time. First, my son noticed that the pictures we'd taken thus far with our cheapo digital camera had somehow been erased! That's why none of these photos show all the things I've described so far; the photos we have start as we were walking down the gangplank.

Then while I was videotaping granite markers in the Texan's campsite, the picture in my viewfinder suddenly went berzerk, fell dark, and the camera shut itself down. I was hoping it had just run unaccountably out of batteries but at home it still refuses to do anything at all, on batteries or current, including show us the video we took. Looks like it's dead, and I really do not have money for a new one.

At any rate, we continued to explore and I got a few shots of such things as the graveyard and the tree (well, a replacement tree) where painfully wounded Sam Houston accepted Santa Ana's surrender.

The disappointing but intrinsically Texan thing about San Jacinto is that the very well-done monument, battlefield, and ship are surrounded on all sides by oil refineries. It's sort of the same thing I noticed with the Alamo: A magnificent shrine to freedom and democracy has been reverently erected -- and then throttled on every side with everyday, prosaic business. At San Jacinto, the birthplace of Texas freedom, you're almost asphyxiated with toxic crude oil aromas, and the very spot of surrender is backgrounded with refinery towers and tug boats.

But aside from that, if you turn your back on the 21st century and concentrate on the dreadnought of the 20th and the battlefield of the 19th, it's a fascinating and moving experience.

The rain had let up for the most part when the park closed and we drove home to Tarantino's Pizza for dinner. Too bad we couldn't watch the video.

A Few Paragraphs

This is a place for me to write down thoughts, observations, ideas, and events as they pass through my brain and I pass through my life. I wouldn't expect anything brilliant, but I am interested in and enjoy just about everything and was brought up to have an opinion on it all.

I'm a happy, curious fellow who tries to maintain a childlike enjoyment of life. I work in finance, but not in any capacity that pays much, mainly because I'm not terribly good at business.

So my wife, son, daughter, cat, two gerbils, and I live modestly and simply in a town we'll call Conglomeration, Texas.